


Fading Daylight

by gnosiophobic



Series: Footprints in the Snow [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnosiophobic/pseuds/gnosiophobic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Comfort.</p>
<p>Something ominous blew through the trees, propelling flakes of ice that whispered this night might be cold enough to take them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fading Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> So, once again I avoided writing true plot, so I hope this whole connect-the-dots style turns out okay!
> 
> And, of course, you lovely commenters and kudos-clickers, you! Nothing I could say would adequately express the amount of happiness I feel when I see I've touched someone with my little story. You guys just make my days so much brighter. Aww!
> 
> Enjoy!

Sansa Stark seemed a broken girl, with troubled eyes that told more than a sad tale ever could.  With hair the dreary color of burnt coal, not radiant auburn, and a once perfect posture that now slouched under the weight of her past. The wench had a few years on her, but you’d never know it looking at them.  While Brienne’s face was tainted by blotchy marks and a grotesque scar that Jaime scarcely noticed any longer, the Stark girl’s face was still smooth and soft, but veiled with pain.  And each time he looked upon her he saw only cruelness and injustice.  He blamed his sister and awful son for a certainty, and his father too.  Not Tyrion, though. _Ripe with hate for his family my little brother may be, but he’d never mar an innocent maid even more damaged than himself._   But the girl refused to speak of her estranged husband.  Truly, she refused to speak much at all and slept with a shoddy dagger in hand.  

It had taken days to convince Sansa they had rescued rather than captured her.  Even now, she spoke only to Brienne, and rarely.  She held even Podrick at a safe distance, disgustedly calling him _the ugly Imp’s squire._   But those words proved sweet compared to what she said of the Kingslayer.  Despite Sansa’s coldness, Jaime was nonetheless glad the girl had become more than some hopeless symbol of his honor restored.

Brienne, however, constantly hovered over her, keeping her warm, treating her as some precious thing easily shattered.  She hadn’t the heart to tell the girl of her mother quite yet.

 

“She doesn’t trust you,” Brienne told him one night, huddled in furs near the fire.

“Good.  That makes her smarter than her father,” Jaime recalled the wolf’s judgmental stare, cold as a northern winter.

“Eddard Stark never trusted you.”  Her words felt harsh, a reminder of her past allegiance.

“Eddard Stark was so honorable it made him stupid.  He had proof of my guilt with his own eyes and walked willingly into a lion’s den.  He may have watched me with a wary eye well enough, but his time would have been better spent on my sweet sister.  He lost his head for that small mistake,”  Jaime’s voice was cool as the night’s breeze and loud enough for Sansa to hear if had yet begun to dream, but he didn’t let her naïveté stop him. _The girl needs to hear the truth.  If she’s to live, she must learn the mistakes of her father._   But Tywin Lannister had learned that lesson early as well.

 

Each night, the cold pressed upon them making furs and fires feel like the thinnest of cloth sheets under a massive frozen sea.  He’d worried about surviving to each morning for a fortnight, but waking under a heavy, suffocating pile of fresh snow gave him a sudden push to search for something more permanent.  When Jaime voiced his concerns, Hunt provided useful information for the first time since he’d met the man.

“There’s a small town not far from here.  Maybe a day’s ride south.  It’s not ideal, seeing as the lot of you will be easily recognized, but it’s certainly better than lying down in the dirt never to wake.”  Hunt looked to Jaime almost dolefully, then diverted his gaze in an instant.  _He thinks I’ll lose my head tonight_ , Jaime thought.  _He thinks I’ll let someone get so lucky.  But if I am to die, I will die fighting._

 

After a quick breakfast, the five of them steadily rode south until they reached the small town.  It wasn’t long before they found all the inns full with travelers, buildings holding vagrants, and beggars huddled beneath mountains of furs and cloth in the streets.  So they rode more.  And Jaime pushed them to keep riding even as the sun fell and daylight faded across the harsh horizon, and as the winds bit into his cheek and made his nose go numb.  But when all traces of sunlight had vanished, he finally resigned to spend one more night in the snow.  Something ominous blew through the trees, propelling flakes of ice that whispered this night might be cold enough to take them.

“We’ll make a big fire and sleep as close as we can to it.  And we’ll need to huddle together for heat,” he felt as though he spoke to his bannermen, not a shieldmaiden, a hedge knight, barely a squire, and a highborn lady.  _My men listened and no blood was shed.  If this lot can hear half as easily, we may survive this night yet._   The comparison forced an ironic grin to his face.

That night, Jaime and Hunt laid on each end, the young ones in the middle and Brienne next to Jaime--he’d made sure of that.  When everyone grew silent and the night, frigid, he kissed her, slowly and softly, stopping only when they heard a sleepy mumble or the snap of a twig in the woods.  He embraced her, and poured himself into her, providing irrefutable proof of what she did to him with each glance or touch, once tortured, yet unabashedly content.  And now that he was allowed to give, he did so gratefully, thankful for each simple touch.  Lightly, he clasped his hand upon her cheek and moved his lips to her brow, the corners of her mouth and the line of her jaw, admiring her, savoring each kiss as though it were the last.  Knowing all too well it could truly be.

Keeping rare moments like these such a secret was no longer necessary, he knew, but he found it came most naturally.  And Brienne seemed more at ease without looming questions or constant judgment.  In truth, the maid had shied away from any kind of open affection, even something so simple as a brush of hands while others may chance a glance.  Resolute as she was, she had even denied him of her warmth on especially cold nights saying it would look improper.  He’d scoffed at that, he remembered.  _Our families are dead to vengeance, our homes burned or seized, leaving us no better than landless knights whose heads belong on spikes if we don’t die out in the snow first, yet she clings to the advice of some dried up septa from her childhood._ On this night, though, he held her close against him as she slept, improperly as he pleased.  

But when he tried to rest, he saw only her face, blue and frozen, her bright eyes now lifeless, wide and staring.  And no longer did he wish to sleep.

 

Hours later, Podrick arose first, all blue-lipped and teeth chattering, then Sansa with snow matting her dark hair.  When Brienne awoke and disentangled herself from his limbs without hesitation, he only chuckled in that proud, but surprisingly genuine way he did.  Though chilled to their bones, shivering and shaking, all had managed to survive to morning.  Jaime decided then he would not give the long night another chance to claim them.

______________________________

 

Jaime Lannister never put much faith in the Seven, having decided long ago they must have turned their backs to him.  But when he stumbled upon an old inn far enough away from even diligent hedge knights who dreamed of being called the Warden of the West, he considered for a moment that he may have brushed them off too quickly.  He’d never be a true man of the faith, he was certain, forsaking all like his ignorant fool of a cousin, but for just this once it seemed the Gods had spared them.  _Or perhaps I’ve once again foiled their plans, escaping death over and again._

The place looked dingy and dirty from the outside, as though no one had so much as laid eyes upon it for some time.  When he swung open the door, Jaime half-expected to find a rotten lad with a loaded crossbow.  Instead he only found moldy bread sitting on a giant wooden table, and unused, untouched firewood stacked high.

“It looks like someone either ran from this place or mysteriously disappeared,” Hunt observed, but Jaime decided he’d rather not question undeniably good fortune.  _Luck may well be the only thing keeping me alive,_ he laughed.With an accepting shrug, Hunt cleared the place of garbage before signaling the rest to enter.

As Podrick walked inside, his eyes lit up with tales of brave knights, hideous monsters and mysterious inns off in the woods clearly floating through his head.  _The place does have an oddly impressive charm to it,_ Jaime agreed.  Conversely, Brienne cautiously looked about the place as though a thousand dead ghosts danced in the large front room, but kept her fears to herself.  Sansa’s face remained a mask.

Unexpectedly, the thought struck him that his journey with the wench began at an abandoned inn.  _But it won’t end at one_ , he promised.

Jaime listened to winds howling and hail pounding upon the wooden roof that night.  A brutal snowstorm brewed outside, one that threatened to slaughter travelers sleeping under nothing but stars, while he sat next to the fireplace, warming his tired toes, watching Brienne slice an apple and split it between Sansa and Pod.  She beamed at them warmly, cutting the fruit into perfect wedges.  The sight brought a slow smile to Jaime’s face.

 

The following morning, he carefully constructed some seemingly solid reason for Brienne to follow him to the woods, leaving Hunt to watch Podrick and Sansa.  They had started their journey on horseback, innocently searching for berries or any fresh animal the frozen night may have claimed.   But once they reached a clearing especially heavy with snowfall, Jaime jumped from his horse like an excited child and began stomping his feet into the deep, untouched ice.  He loved the sound it made under his boot, a distinctive and satisfying crunch.  Brienne turned to watch before she did the same.

 

Shrieking and hollering, giggling and laughing, they chased each other through the thick heaps, forgetting for a moment just how deadly its press could be.  The snow was deep up to their knees and he wondered if his feet could even reach the wet dirt beneath it.

Jaime caught the maid when she slipped on patchy ice, pulling her into a soft cushion of pure white, gracelessly pinning her beneath him.  For a moment, they smiled like children playing a game, breathless, with cheeks red and pieces of ice stuck to their hair and worries all but forgotten.  Much to his surprise, it was Brienne’s strong fingers that clutched his woolen tunic gingerly, and her wind-chapped, but demure lips that brushed his in a chaste, apprehensive kiss that lasted mere seconds before she pulled away with a blush heavy within her cheeks.  She kissed him as she always did, eternally so hesitant, as though she asked a shy question, still unsure if he welcomed her touch.  Then after, diverting her eyes and worriedly biting her lip in a way that only made her strangely more covetable.

Jaime let out a playful, but almost haughty laugh at that before he pressed his mouth to hers confidently, as if answering the very question the maid had posed.  And relief washed over him, pushing out the cold air that threatened to return him to reality--the place where he remained a wanted man with no home, where he listened to Brienne’s soft sobs some nights, still shaken from the loss of her father, where this legendary winter could destroy even the forgotten inn he’d so luckily found and take everything from him in an instant.

Biting and scraping, drifting into something more wanton, their warmth melted the snow gathered around them, creating mushy puddles of soiled white that soaked through already worn wool.  And with no audience but frozen leaves and dripping ice, Brienne pushed her maiden worries aside, diving into him as though she’d never felt so desired.  And she likely hadn’t.  Without words, he let his lips convey that message he felt so obvious: that some part of him longed for her even before he understood the odd feeling.  Back when he blamed the time spent apart from his disloyal twin--once the only rationalization he could muster for his body’s strange behavior.  And now, her lips upon his forced everything into perspective, but flung it askew as well.  Even the lightest brush made his chest implode and head swim, lost in some sea of unknown euphoria, anchored only by the press of his chest against hers and their fingers entwined, the contrast of something tangible.  When he chanced a glance at her between kisses, she looked so determined, yet so fragile, and he wanted to build her up and help her never doubt her firm power over him again.  He yielded to her, blissfully.

His fingertips tumbled across wool and leather until they found skin soft and smooth, pulled taut across a defined map of disciplined practice.  And his lips soon followed pulsing along the modest inward curve of her waist, dangerously toeing the line between too-high and too-low for a maddeningly sheepish maid.  But he pushed his luck anyway, pulling the waistband of her breeches down only slightly to reveal the flesh swell of her hip, a spot of skin his mouth couldn’t resist.

“Jaime..” she sounded so breathless, even more than from any duel he remembered.  He could only moan in response, much too entranced by each newly exposed inch of her fair skin and the unwittingly breathy way she spilled his name.

“Jaime!”  This time her voice became a more obvious warning.  And he pulled away, aching, his body only screaming for more.  Dizzy and heated, he searched for words.

“I’d love to apologize, but I’m afraid it would be a terrible lie,” he laughed, cockily amused by her much too embarrassed expression.  As if drawn to her by an ever shortening thread, he pushed back, meeting her neck with lips and tongue, a satisfactory compromise.  Briefly, he noticed her fingers clumsily, nervously pulling her breeches back to their normal position.

“Jaime.. we should head back..” worry crept into her whisper, only slightly shielding the raspy, lustful tone she failed to keep hidden.

“Mmm.. should we?”  Jaime’s voice hid nothing, muffled only by the satiny skin covering her collarbone, where his mouth relentlessly embraced over and over.

“They’ll start to worry..” her unskilled fingers betrayed her concern, tracing circles in his golden hair damp from snowfall.

“Then we’ll make good excuses,” he murmured, his voice low and deep, his lips moving up her pale neck in a way even he could no longer comprehend.  Somehow, the entire world seemed too hazy, too wonderful.  Until he caught the slight trepidation clouding in her eyes.

With a conceding smile, he kissed her lips once more, softly, lazily, and decidedly more virtuous, though he found it impossible to completely conceal the overwhelming yearning he felt.  _She’s but a nervous maid.  Even a slow pace may move too quickly._

 

When they returned to the inn with a meager handful of sticks to add to the already well-stocked collection of firewood, Hunt turned his gaze to the floorboards before retreating to a room upstairs.  A gentle rumble in Jaime’s stomach reminded him they’d have little more than dried salt beef and wine to sup on that evening.  _Tomorrow we’ll hunt as well,_ he decided with a presumptuous smile.

Propping his feet up before the fire, he tossed in a small twig he had picked up haphazardly on their way back.  The stick caught fire quickly, crackled and moaned within the fireplace and soon the flames had greedily engulfed it, leaving nothing but burning chips to join much larger plumes.  The fire burned, hissed, and lit up the large room, leaving only tiny shadowy crevices and corners that still illuminated infrequently as the flames excitedly danced.  And Jaime’s cold toes had never felt warmer.


End file.
